Thursday, November 10, 2016

NOM has an unrealistic plan to roll back LGBT progress

Mr. Misadventure, Brian S. Brown, has sent out an email titled “The Plan.” Brown writes “We are confident that our voice and our views will be important in a Trump administration.”

Brian Brown and other Trump supporters are going to learn a very painful lesson. The only views and the only voice that are important to Donald Trump are those within his own head. The only thing that Trump cares about is Donald Trump.

There is a more pragmatic issue facing Brown and others seeking to undo LGBT equality. 60 votes are required in the US Senate to confirm a justice of the Supreme Court. GOPers will only have 52 seats. With that in mind, let's go through Brown's “plan.” Well, first let us remember that National Organization for Marriage has never accomplished a single goal.

We will work with President Trump to nominate conservative justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, individuals who will adhere to the words and meaning of the constitution. Such justices will inevitably reverse the anti-constitutional ruling of the Supreme Court imposing same-sex 'marriage' on the nation in the Obergefell decision, because that decision lacked any basis in the constitution.

First of all, Trump will need to find 60 votes in the Senate. Democrats might decide to hold at eight justices throughout the Trump debacle. Even if they put a conservative justice on the Court there remains the issue of Article III standing. Someone is going to have to litigate from the position of having sustained (past tense) a real (not speculative or hypothetical) injury due to same-sex marriage and that reversing Obergefell is the only remedy. I will remind Mr. Brown that it took about six years to get a marriage case before the Court. Three years were required for United States v. Windsor and no case is currently pending.

We will work with President Trump to rescind the illegal, over-reaching executive orders and directives issued by President Obama, including his dangerous "gender identity" directives, attempting to redefine gender just as he sought to redefine marriage.

I suspect that Trump will reverse the guidance from the Department of Education. I also suspect that we will not prevail in Gloucester School Board v. G.G. I hope to hell that I am wrong. I want to grovel in my own ineptitude on this one. On both counts, however, NOM will be irrelevant.

We will work with President Trump to reverse policies of the Obama administration that seek to coerce other countries into accepting same-sex 'marriage' as a condition of receiving US assistance and aid. It is fundamentally wrong for a president to become a lobbyist for the LGBT agenda, and we are confident that will end in the Trump administration.

NOM is not going to advise any administration regarding foreign policy and Brown is misstating our efforts to influence other nations on same-sex marriage. Obama has tried to influence African nations to be more decent to their gay citizens. He has been generally unsuccessful. Trump will probably cease trying to make Uganda et al more civil. In the end it won't make any difference.

We will work with President Trump and Congress to pass the First Amendment Defense Act (FADA), which Mr. Trump supports. FADA is critical legislation to protect people who believe in marriage from being targeted by the government for persecution.

Regardless of who is in the White House, I doubt that his will ever get out of committee in the Senate and even if it did, supporters are far short of the 60 votes required for cloture. I am guessing that the new Senate Minority Leader will be Dick Durbin. He is no Schumer but he is not Harry Reid either. Republicans are going to have a hard fight for everything.

In the final analysis the Senate, particularly without Harry Reid, is going to hold Trump in check. There will be no wall and NOM will be as inept in 2017 as they have been in the past.